


Rosie's Homework

by Upstarsfromreality



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, M/M, Story: The Adventure of the Speckled Band, Story: The Adventure of the Three Students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630114
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upstarsfromreality/pseuds/Upstarsfromreality
Summary: Teenage rebellion solves a case.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Kudos: 15





	1. Chapter 1

John glanced up from his email to fix Rosie with a glare, then carefully transfer said glare to Sherlock. "Young lady," he said to Rosie while still keeping his eyes on Sherlock, "I understand you've skipped English class three sessions running."

"I was just going back to the bio lab to check on my experiments, Dad. I came back once I had the cultures inoculated. I was actually in English, but I got there after Ms. Michaels took roll."

"That's not an improvement," sputtered John. "You're not supposed to be in any of the labs without supervision, and I happen to know your biology teacher has her off period during your English class. - She called me during it once, but I couldn't call you about it because your schedule showed you in English."

"We're only reading Hamlet, Dad. The experiment was way more important."

John looked from Sherlock to Rosie and back again. Sherlock did a full body-shrug, denying any involvement in the argument. "Sherlock," asked John, "Did you tell her reading Hamlet was not important?"

"No,I just told her the experiments were a priority." 

"Rosie, your turn, did you only skip the first few minutes of class - which just happened to contain the quiz - or did you skip the reading, too?" 

"I skipped all of it. I already know the story, thanks to Aunt Molly's nostalgia marathons when I was little having forced me to watch The Lion King four times."

John wanted to pull his hair out. "That is not the same thing," he hissed. He would have thought living with Sherlock would have given him experience dealing with a teenager. It apparently did not give him enough.

"Really," says Rosie, "I bet you can't name one thing that's different about the plot. Name just one and I'll read it."

John actually couldn't remember the plot of either drama well enough to point out a difference. He stalled for time by telling her "You'll read it anyway. Once I name one, you'll be grounded for skipping class." Rosie smirks at him, knowing he won't remember, but John suddenly realizes he doesn't need both plots, just one plot and a setting. "The murder methods were different," he said. "There aren't any massive trampling herds of wildebeest in Denmark." 

"It could have been reindeer," counters Rosie. 

"Thank you for proving that you didn't know it wasn't," snapped John, at the same time that Sherlock said, "They don't range that far south."

John has had enough of this. "Rosie, you're grounded. You will sit in the client chair until you have read the first three acts, plus three extra hours - one for every class you blew off. You will start as soon as I get off at the surgery Saturday and continue until time is up or your papa and I have a case."

Three hours into the grounding on Saturday, John seriously regretted his decision. Rosie had gone into a massive sulk and was sitting in the chair, rolling her eyes at him and Sherlock, not speaking to either of them, and not bothering to touch the book. This had the potential to be a very long weekend. Nothing could have made him happier than evicting Rosie from the chair so a client could sit in it. He smiled as Sherlock started showing off to the client - finally an excuse. "Ms. Stoner," said Sherlock ,"please say something more interesting than that you have a twin, whose jumper you're wearing - your size and a good color for you, but glitzier than you would buy for yourself-, that you came here by train even though you have a car, or that you skipped breakfast and lunch, making you shake slightly."

"Mr. Holmes," said Ms. Stoner "I am not shaking from hunger. It is rage that makes me shake. Rage at the incompetent police, because my sister did not commit suicide, no matter what the coroner said. She couldn't have ingested the yew extract, even if there were traces in her stomach. There was no residue on her lips."

Shakespeare and the grounding could wait. This was more than an excuse. It was a case.


	2. Chapter 2

"All right, Ms. Stoner," said Sherlock, "tell us the story. When and where did your sister die, and why did the police think it was suicide?"

Ms. Stoner looked at Sherlock and John, and began.

"My sister, Julia Stoner, was a student at Cambridge, studying biochemistry, when she died two weeks ago. She had been dating - almost engaged to - a man my stepfather didn't like. Graham - that's my stepfather - had just made her break it off, and the police thought she was depressed about that, and killed herself over it. And, like I said, the poison was in her stomach. So they thought she took it."

"It is pretty conclusive," said John. "Did the autopsy show anything else significant?"

Ms. Stoner shook her head. "Only the broken right eardrum she'd had for years, and a large bruise on her left hip. Neither of those could have killed her."

Rosie, who hadn't left the room when Ms. Stoner came in, looked slightly interested at the mention of these findings "Did anyone who lived near her know about the eardrum?" she asked.

"Oh, practically everyone," said Ms. Stoner, "She was deaf in that ear, and would turn the other one towards whoever spoke to her. She explained to people she wanted to know, and plenty of people she didn't want to know demanded an explanation for why she wasn't looking at them."

"I have found the general expectation for eye contact irritating myself. What about the bruise - do you know where that came from?" asked Sherlock.

"I was told she bumped into a table, trying to avoid someone passing by in a cafe that afternoon. The police took that as more evidence that she was depressed. They said it made her too withdrawn to look where she was going."

"Bumping or nearly bumping into someone at a cafe would be a good chance to poison them, though. Did anyone check out the cafe?" asked John.

"The police watched security footage, but didn't bother talking to anyone. Apparently she was done eating and on her way to the loo when it happened, so even if the person had put something in her plate, it wouldn't have killed her."

"And it still should have shown up on her lips," said Sherlock. "You're sure that the autopsy said it wasn't there, not just that it didn't say it was there?"

"Oh, yes," said Ms. Stoner. "I have a friend in the pathologist's office. She showed me the report. The swab was there, marked negative."

Rosie broke in again, urgently. "Ms. Stoner, do you know how your sister's body was found?" 

Strangely, that was the question that broke Ms. Stoner down. "She was in her bed, on her side, looking at the wall. We shared a room as children. Mr. Holmes, she would never sleep that way. She couldn't sleep on her back or her stomach, and she was afraid to sleep facing the wall. The only way she would ever sleep was looking at the room. Her roommate says she's still the same way now. Mr. Holmes, please believe me. My sister was a happy person. She had a good shot at that scholarship half her floor was competing for. The police are wrong to say she took poison, went to sleep the wrong way, and died." She sobbed, destroyed by the realization.

While John rushed up to comfort her, Rosie looked at Sherlock with shining eyes. "Papa," she insisted, "you have to go to Cambridge and interview the staff of that cafe. Bring pictures of students from Julia's dorm floor. Find out if any of them were there when she bumped her hip. They don't need to have been the bumper, just to have seen it and known about the bruise."

"All right, Watson," said Sherlock, "but why? What did I miss?"

"Because I did read Hamlet after Dad stopped yelling at me Thursday." said Rosie. "And killing his dad would have been a lot harder than Shakespeare thought."


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock and John took the train to Cambridge. John called Lestrade and got him to warn the local force, and get them an in with the officer in charge of the case, DI Soames.

The look at the crime scene was short, just long enough for Sherlock to see that the bed was in a corner. There was no difference between the headboard and the footboard, with both being industrial metal railings, but the room itself helped to define the bed.

"Look, John. Almost everyone is programmed to sleep with their head by the wall when there's a wall there. She wouldn't have made the bed the other way around even if she'd thought of it.

"Im lettting you have a look as a favor to Greg, but there's nothing to see," said Soames. "The girl killed herself."

"And just happened to sleep the wrong way up for the first time ever?" asked Sherlock. "I don't think so. Someone saw that and took advantage."

"Advantage of what? People don't suddenly become more susceptible to poison just because of how they sleep."

"Not most people, no," replied Sherlock. "But Julia Stoner did. We're going to the cafe where she ate her last meal."

"But nothing happened at the cafe. She ate dinner, bumped her hip, and didn't talk to anyone. It's depressing, but there's no motive for murder in it," argued Soames.

"Nobody needed to talk to Julia for them to want to kill her. She just had to keep being excellent."

John broke in before the conversation could get any closer to nowhere. "You agree with our colleague that this is about the scholarship. Her tutor did say she was the frontrunner."

At the cafe, the waitstaff were eager to help the police, probably to get them out before their pot dealing was noticed. They glanced through the photos of scholarship candidates and stopped on one. "He was definitely here that night," one of them affirmed. Sherlock glanced at the picture and smiled. Giles Christiansen wasn't just in the running for the scholarship, he was also Julia's roommate's boyfriend. Now all they needed was a look at his keys.


	4. Chapter 4

Getting a look at Christiansen's keys proved to be supremely boring. They watched his building starting fifteen minutes before the end of his last class for hours on end. Finally, just when John was ready to give up and figure he wasn't coming home that evening, Giles showed up. Sherlock had the better angle on his hand as he locked up his bike, so John couldn't see, but Sherlock made a slightly satisfied noise next to him. "Three keys in the building's pattern, then?"

"Yep, and we know he only needs two, one for the building and one for his room, since that's all Julia had. Let's go."

John and Sherlock rushed up to flank Christiansen as he opened the building door. "Interesting how you knew her bad ear would be up to your strychnine into," said John, once they were in position.

"Of course, even knowing that didn't get you anywhere without a key to her room," added Sherlock.

Christiansen struggled to get out from between the men. "Lots of guys have a key to their girlfriend's room. That doesn't mean anything."

"Yeah, but let's of guys' girlfriends don't have murder victims for roommates," countered Sherlock. "You can tell our friend DI Soames the rest."

At the station, Sherlock and John piled up the evidence against Christiansen. The key. The scholarship. His knowledge of her bad ear. His knowledge of the bump on her thigh, making that side too tender to sleep on.

Christiansen objected to compilation. "You can't even prove I poured strychnine in the ear. It's all circumstantial."

"We can now you, you arsehole. Press reports never specified strychnine. Julia only knew that from her pathologist friend. Enjoy prison," said John.

"But how did you know it was in her ear in the first place?" Christiansen asked.

Sherlock smiled. "As to that, my daughter did her research. There's only so many ways to ingest a substance without it passing your lips. Julia Stoner just happened to have one more than most people."

On the way home, Sherlock texted Rosie: "You are amazing. You're still grounded, but he's in jail. Next time tell us you're gonna read more than just the book. We love you."

**Author's Note:**

> Rosie's perspective that she didn't need to read Hamlet because she'd seen The Lion King? That was definitely me, once upon a time.


End file.
